"Run quickly, there is an unstable patient on the loose. He is heading this way, hurry, get out of here!" The staff member ran back out the door and on to the next set of patients staying in the infirmary and proceeded to say the same thing to them. Nadia got up from the bed and helped James out of his. They had just barely had their new legs attached, let alone turned on. So they had yet to master the balance from the new leg and so were quite a bit wobbly. Leaning on each other they were able to make it out through the door.
When they opened the door they expected to see someone there ready to whisk them away, so as to control the situation. But as they entered into the hallway all they saw was chaos and a golden opportunity. Other patients were running down the hallway, going in every direction. The guards and other doctors were trying to reinstate some order but whatever had started this panic had clearly down it right. James and Nadia looked at each other and smiled.
"Here is our chance, let"s go. Let"s go home." James held Nadia and Nadia held James as the shuffled down the hall. The new leg felt like dead weight to them since they hadn"t ever started rehab let alone the fact that they had just barely been turned on. And then in the chaos of the situation Nadia saw a girl she knew as being from the community housing, from her own group seven if she remembered correctly. But Nadia barely recognized her though, her replaced arm was all machine and gears, and something must have happened to her face, as it too was half covered in machine parts. The girl, whose name Nadia couldn"t recall, looked at her but her eyes were dead, completely lacking any expression or emotion. For a brief moment Nadia mourned her pa.s.sing, for clearly this girl was dead inside and was no longer the girl she had been before.
"We need to hurry before the reinstate control and drag us back to that devil den of a hospital room." James pulled Nadia away from the limping girl that Nadia had once known. Somewhere in the distance an explosion sounded and James and Nadia hustled to get away from that area, since it was most likely that the unstable patient was the cause of it. As long as the patient continued to run amok the more likely it was that James and Nadia could escape.
What James and Nadia quickly discovered was that the prison they were being kept in was almost maze like in its build. All the walls and floors looked the same, it was impossible to tell one hallway apart from another and the two of them spent far too long trying to figure out where they were let alone where they needed to go to escape. When they finally decided on a hallway they began to go down it, but at the other end of the hallway was an all too familiar silhouette, Elizabeth.
"Turn back, quickly." Nadia whispered to James, but it was too late Elizabeth had spotted them and was starting to come down the hallway. Her heels long gone in the chaos she was able to run down the hall faster than James and Nadia could get away.
"Got you two. We need to get out of here before some uninvited guests show up here. If nothing else you two need to be saved. Hurry, this way." Elizabeth dragged Nadia and James back down the hallway that they had just come from. Though they tried to get away from Elizabeth, due to the way she was dragging them down the hallway and they nearly unusable leg they couldn"t find enough balance or traction to get away.
Then there was quiet clicking sound as a small object bounced towards them down the hallway. It was too late that they realized it was a small bomb and within seconds a bright flash accompanied with a loud bang and an explosion threw the three of them clear down the hallway. Elizabeth was knocked unconscious, but wasn"t dead. For a split second Nadia considered taking her life as payback for the h.e.l.l she had put them through, but James pulled her to her feet and pulled her away from the scene, eager to get back to their escape.
As they were finally getting back to where they had been before Elizabeth had encountered them someone or something was coming the hallway. And so Nadia and James hobbled a little faster. They got down the hallway and came across only one other door. Nadia and James opened the door and it opened upon a large opening and a sign that hung above another door that said exit. They were almost home free; they were almost out of the h.e.l.l hole that had stolen years from their lives as well as loved ones. They took a few more steps forward but then the unstable patient came busting through the door hitting James and causing him to go flying off beyond Nadia. She fell to the ground because her balance was off, and that is when she got a glimpse of the attacker.
When he walked up to Nadia she about shattered. It was her brother standing before her. But he was different. He was no longer the older brother she remembered him being. Years of torture and metal had changed him into a machine through and through. There was nearly no sc.r.a.p of humanity left in him. Most of his body was made of metal and his eyes were scanning the surroundings. Nadia was speechless, how long she had waited to see her dear brother again, and now here he was, he was different, but so was she.
"Dmitri? It"s me Nadia. I have waited so long to see you, come with us and let"s escape from here together. You are all that I have left. I am just so glad that you are here." Dmitri did not seem to be paying Nadia any attention but when she was done talking he shifted his gaze to her and then leaped towards her. Nadia screamed and put up her arms in defense. He stopped in mid jump and it appeared as if he was fighting within himself.
"Dmitri why are you doing this? Stop it right now, this is not who you are." Dmitri grabbed his head, as if he were experiencing a great deal of pain. Nadia came up next to him and caressed his head. For a moment he was calm, and then as if a switch clicked inside of him he backhanded Nadia leaving scratches along her cheek. The scratches started to bleed and Nadia tried to hold her cheek but Dmitri was coming after her again. She turned to run but stopped. Coming from the exit door was what looked like a SWAT team. Turning back to her brother Nadia didn"t know what to do.
"Neutralize the enemy and grab that girl." One of the men, Nadia a.s.sumed he was the leader issued the orders and the men around him dispersed. Several of the men went after Dmitri and Nadia went to his side, blocking the men from getting at him.
"Do not hurt my brother, please he doesn"t mean to do this! He is a good person, this is not the real Dmitri, please believe me when I say that he isn"t himself right now." She was starting at the men but they just grabbed her up and started to pull her away. Dmitri did not want this to happen and he started to throw the men to the side, causing them to hit walls and fly several yards in the air. Nadia went to Dmitri"s side, trying to calm him down before the police decided to use deadly force on him.
"Dmitri you need to stop this or they will kill you! Don"t you want to leave this place, leave with me and James and never come back again?" Nadia was pulling on her brother"s arm, but he wasn"t moving. When Nadia looked into his eyes she saw such conflict and an underlying layer of fear. Then his gaze shifted sidelong to make eye contact with Nadia. He seemed like he wanted to say something, but he was trembling from keeping himself still. But finally his mouth opened.
"Ru...n, Na...dia. I..I ..can"t st-st-stop it any..more. It..hurts...so much." Nadia didn"t understand, but her brother"s expression was so melancholy that he seemed on the brink of tears, but due to his nearly complete mechanical composition he was no longer able to. Nadia grabbed her brother into a tight embrace.
"I won"t let your leave me again. Not when I have waited years to see you again. We are together now, and we will be forever from now on. You understand?" Nadia clenched her brother tightly, her fear of losing him again too much to bare. A short distance away James was trying to stand and make his way back to Nadia. He could see the nearly complete cyborg that Nadia had said was her brother, but James knew that what little was actually left of her brother was soon going to dissipate.
"Nadia, we need to go now." James called out. Nadia heard him and grabbed her brother by the hand and began to pull him closet to James and towards the exit. By then the SWAT team had recovered from their fight with Dmitri and hustled to stop him from leaving the premises.
"Stop right where you are. None of you move." The leader called out to James, Nadia and Dmitri. What little control that Dmitri seemed to have found in that moment was gone as he tried back to the men and came at them full force again.
"NOO! DMITRI!" Nadia called out and made to go after him, but James held her back.
"Let go of me James, I need to help Dmitri. I can save him, I just need to get him out of here and then we can go back home and be a family. I can"t lose him, not again, not when I have already lost everyone else. I just can"t!" Nadia thrashed in James grasp, desperate to get to her brother.
"No Nadia, that isn"t your brother anymore. You can"t save him anymore. We need to get out of here while we can. Let your brother go." James was working on pulling Nadia towards the exit when she elbowed him in the stomach. That loosened his grip just enough for Nadia to escape his grasp and hobble as quickly as she could to her brother.
"Dmitri, come back to me. I need you!" Nadia tripped on her useless leg and went crashing to the ground just as one of the men pulled out a gun from his holster. Nadia saw and screamed out to her brother.
"NOOOO!" A gunshot rang out as the man shot Dmitri in center of his head. He stopped moving right away, gave a slight tremble and then fell to the floor. Dmitri was lying there on the floor, unmoving and Nadia felt her breath leave her body completely. Silent tears, from years of being pent up flowed down her face. There, lying in a crumpled heap of metal and machine was the last member of her family.
She couldn"t even move, the life seemed to be draining from her. But then she saw the other men pick up crowbars and Nadia pushed herself up and scrambled her way towards her brother. One of the other SWAT members caught her and held her back and the men started to tear Dmitri apart, one piece of metal at a time. Nadia screamed b.l.o.o.d.y murder and broke free of the men holding her. She ran to Dmitri"s side and fell onto the ground. The men tearing him apart stopped for a second, not wanting to hurt her.
"Dmitri, are you okay? It"s alright you can make it through this. Come on, wake up, I know you can!" Nadia was shaking Dmitri and the metal was clinking as she shook him, but there was no response. Nadia continued to shake the hunk of machine that was left of her brother when suddenly there was a snap and Nadia set Dmitri down. Then a tape ca.s.sette protruded from Dmitri"s chest. Nadia was confused by it. Hesitantly she pressed the play b.u.t.ton. After a few seconds of registering the tape a voice could be heard. It was Dmitri"s voice.
"Nadia if you are hearing this it probably means that I am dead. I am sorry that I could not be there with you at this moment but I promise you that I will always look over you from wherever I am. I wanted to explain myself so that you would know why I am doing the things I am doing. The people in charge of this company wanted to try an experimental chip in my brain. They said that I was allowed to make a tape saying anything I wanted to and that if I should die this tape would start playing. I don"t have much time but I wanted to tell you that I loved you and that I know you will make it out of here somehow; you were always the leader anyway. Be strong and live." In the tape there was a door opening and footsteps that grew louder. "Wait, I have a few more minutes to make my tape." Another voice was heard talking back to Dmitri.
"Yeah, well to bad the boss says that you are done so let"s go." There is a scuffle heard and there are punches thrown. Dmitri then starts yelling furiously, obvious that he was enduring extreme pain. Nadia shivers were she sits and tears start to fall down her cheeks once more. A member of the SWAT team comes up from behind Nadia and grabs her.
"Time to go miss." There is a scuffle between them but the guy is stronger and Nadia was on the losing side of balance. James is also grabbed by another member of the team.
"No, my brother is trying to tell me something. Stop he isn"t done yet. Let me go!" She starts screaming and in the tape Dmitri is screaming. Together Nadia and Dmitri"s screams echo in the large room. James is also calling to Nadia, but all she can hear is the sound of her brother screaming. Nadia tries to escape the clutches of the men who hold her, but they continue to pull her out of the room, towards the exit that not so long ago was Nadia"s only concern. Now she tries to claw her way back into the h.e.l.lhole she was trying so desperately to escape. Everyone is gathered up and the SWAT team starts to evacuate the room. As Nadia is pulled closer and closer to the door the screams on the tape get more and more frantic.
"Let me go, please, I need to be with my brother. He is all I have left. All I have left." But the men ignore her pleas; it is not there place to go against orders. The screams on the recorded tape are slowly dying down, and the soft sound of pulling a body across a floor is clearly audible to Nadia"s sensitive ears. Her brother can no longer tell her what he wanted to tell her and Nadia slumps in the men"s grip.
Then as the door is slammed shut behind Nadia so does the door slam shut on the tape. The tape clicks and then rewinds itself. Once it finishes rewinding the tape starts to play through the message again and it repeats the message over and over and over again.
Epilogue.
Two months later...
The company that was in charge of the operation was arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder along with a few dozen other felonies. The problem was that the company was rich and was able to hire great attorneys. The trial was going to be a long and brutal battle in the courtroom. Nadia and James were taken into government protection and were among a very small number of patients to be retrieved. In the chaos of the operation many of them had run out of the building before the police had arrived and were thus untraceable. In addition, Jack was never recovered and is still considered to be alive and well, most likely having gone underground, hiding and waiting.
The next step in Nadia and James" lives is to readjust to life outside of the underground base they had been kept in for nearly four years. Nadia was having a very hard time dealing with the death of her brother and the previously unresolved grief of her family. James won"t let her out of his sight ever. Together they are working to put their lives back together, but it will be a long and complicated process, and even after they have readjusted they are still not safe. The government, who had rescued them, also has plans for the living, breathing, real life cyborgs. The Theta Company had only ever seen them as circuits and synapses, machines to be controlled and used for killing and profits. It was never imagined that they would be integrated into society, but now that is exactly what they need to do in order to survive.
Acknowledgements.
This book would have never been created without a few very few things happening in my life. First off, to National Novel Writing Month, for getting me to actually sit down and write the first draft of this novel. If it wasn"t for this program there is a good chance this novel would have never been written. I owe a lot to this wonderful program and anyone who has ever thought about writing should look into it.
Secondly, to a pair of sisters, who helped me to craft this story by talking through the concept of this story with me. It is due to our long winded discussion during a football game that the seedling of an idea sprouted into a real possible story concept. Though it wouldn"t be until years later that I actually wrote the story they were an integral reason why it happened at all.
And of course, to my parents, who are the reason I am on the planet to begin with. Obviously if I weren"t around this story wouldn"t be either.
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